Wednesday, December 5, 2018

Students involved in the National School Strike for Climate Actionjoined First Nations leaders from Seedmob, youth leaders from AYCC and climate experts to hold a peaceful occupation of approximately 100 people in the foyer of Federal Parliament House in Canberra on Wednesday 5 December.

This follows a climate strike involving over 15,000 students and supporters on Friday 30 November in all capital cites and some 20 regional cities and towns.

The students are demanding:

1. Stop the Adani coal mine

2. No new coal or gas

3. 100% renewable energy by 2030

and requesting:

1. Host a climate change forum for school students in your electorate before the Federal Election

2. Take a photo with us and a StopAdani sign to demonstrate your opposition to the mine and support for our future.

About 100 students peacefully occupied the Parliament House foyer, making speeches, singing songs and chanting.

"As young people, we are fighting for our lives. Politicians are failing to do their job, and we’re at Parliament today forcing them to face up to the impacts of climate change we’re experiencing right now and demand they stop Adani’s dangerous coal mine,” high school student Nosrat Fareha, 15, said.

“While politicians here in Canberra are approving toxic new fossil fuel projects, we are suffering the consequences,” Millie Telford of the Seed Indigenous Youth Climate Network said today.

“We’ve had enough of being polite about this, our politicians don’t represent us anymore, they represent the coal lobby. You have a choice to make: stand with us and stop the Adani mine, or we’ll be everywhere you go, everywhere you look and we’ll see you at the ballot box next election,” Gemma Borgo-Caratti, National Director of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition said.

“I’m here today because people from my community don’t want Adani’s mine to go ahead. Queensland is literally on fire with unprecedented bushfires and extreme heat, fuelled by mining and burning of coal. In Townsville, we need jobs that are sustainable and don’t compromise our safety or the places we love,” Tully Bowtell-Young, 14, of Townsville said.

“Over two million Australians have taken action in the #StopAdani campaign. They know how much is at stake for the people and places we love if this mine were to go ahead, and they are willing to do whatever it takes to stop it,” Gemma Borgo-Caratti said.

Labor's Climate and Energy spokeperson, Mark Butler, gets it. This is an excerpt of a speech he made in parliament while the students were occupying the foyer. Read his parliamentary speech.

Last week here in Australia literally thousands of students, overwhelmingly with the permission of their parents, decided to take a day off school and march in the streets to protest at the lack of reasonable action by this parliament and this government. We all want kids to go to school, but I think on this side of the parliament we also understand the deep frustration that young Australians at school and beyond school age feel at the lack of action by our generation on climate change, particularly in this building. I talk to young Australians, as I know members of this House across the aisle talk to young Australians, all the time. I hear them saying just how let down they feel by our generation in dealing with something that they feel is going to be such a substantial issue over the course of what we hope will be their very long lives. They feel let down in an unforgiveable way.

None of us should fall for the rubbish that is often spouted by commentators—and unfortunately some on the other side of the House—that what Australia does doesn't matter in this debate. Yes, we are a small nation. We don't even rate in the top 50 of the world's nations in population, but we rate in the top 15 in the total amount of greenhouse gases emitted from this economy. We are a wealthy nation that has, along with other members of the OECD, grown wealthy on the back of long-term industrialisation. We are the highest per capita producer of greenhouse gases. If Australia won't act and take responsible strong action on climate change, which nation on the face of the planet should be expected to act? We have a deep responsibility in this area, as a good global citizen, a friend and a neighbour to communities in our region for whom climate change poses a threat. As parents, grandparents, uncles and aunties we have a generational responsibility to do everything we reasonably can to ensure our children and grandchildren enjoy a natural environment at least as good as the one that we enjoy.

The world is facing a climate emergency. Labor is not just ready to take action; we are impatient to take action. We know that this is in the national interest, our children's interest, and our grandchildren's interest. Full speech: https://t.co/CPmKjNcdmopic.twitter.com/uuNdrXpDhH

Although students are highly critical that Bill Shorten, leader of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party, still has not committed to Stop the Adani mine, if Labor are elected to power in the Federal Election due in the next 6 months.

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About Me

Time to leap out of the slowly boiling pot of earth's warming climate
into action on climate mitigation and adaption.
I don't want my children to ask why I didn't act after reading the
scientific reports of climate risks. I write on the
effects of human induced climate change, sea level rise, ocean
acidification, biodiversity loss, environmental and social impacts of
global warming, and climate protests from a Melbourne Citizen
Journalist.

A member of environmental NGOs and community groups for 30 years in Australia, currently living in Melbourne. I have been a Citizen journalist for the Indymedia network in Australia and worldwide from 2000, as an editor and contributor with Australia Indymedia and the global features collective. Since 2013 I have contributed many stories to Margot Kingston's citizen journalism website: nofibs.com.au. (See my article archive) I also post photoessays to Flickr and videos to Youtube and edit wikipedia as user Tirin. My website is takver.com where I can be contacted through the feedback form, the most reliable way to contact me. I can also be contacted through facebook and on twitter as @takvera.